my grandmother Mabel.
The house was a rather modern one which reminded me somewhat of the
House in New Boston
(a ranch style house which my father had built in 1968 on a hill in New Boston,
Ohio).

Mabel wasn't there; I had the feeling that she had died and
that Clarence had inherited the house; but Clarence likewise wasn't there.

I walked into the living room which soon began filling with
people whom I perceived to be relatives of Clarence and who seemed to be somehow
related to my
step-uncle Ivan. The more I looked at them, the more I
thought that they were only in-laws or step-relatives of Ivan and that their relation
with Ivan was rather tenuous. They were a rather unsavory bunch. They weren't dirty, but
they seemed uncouth and several were rather overweight.

I wandered into the kitchen where someone had carried
in a package of sweet rolls in an aluminum foil tray wrapped in plastic. It
seemed there was little to eat in the house and it appeared that
in general these people were parasites dissipating Clarence's wealth. Their
behavior bothered me and I wondered if Clarence would force the people to leave if he
returned home. As I looked around the kitchen, I wondered if any roaches were in
the house. If roaches were there, I doubted any of these people would even bother to
have them killed.

When I walked back into the living room, I found the people
had left. In their place I found
Jon (my
friend from law school)
standing shirtless in the middle of the room. Jon and I talked and the
conversation turned toward law. He told me that he had been learning to
do title searches and that he was planning to do title searches when he became a lawyer. I
personally had no desire to do that kind of work (which seemed rather
mundane to me), but I thought title work was at least a skill which he could learn and
at which he could become proficient.

When Jon became rather nasty, I felt increasingly as if
I wanted to get away and I had the distinct impression he was going to
do something to hurt me. When he left the room to go outside, I was sure he was
going to fetch something with which to injure me. Thinking now was a good
opportunity to flee, I stepped out the back door.

I now realized that I was barefoot and that I would have difficulty
leaving without shoes. I looked around; lying nearby was a pair of blue shoes
which looked as if they might fit. They were plastic slip-ons and the material
reminded me of a pair of my girlfriend

Louise's shoes. I slipped them on and they fit. From outside, through the back window, I
could see Jon had reentered the living room. Even though I thought he might
be able to see me, I began running away.

The house was in the country and was surrounded by a forest.
The land had been cleared in the direction in which I ran; to my left were
piled some trees and brush which had been cut down. A rather high steep
bank was on the other side of the piles of brush. Wanting to reach a road beyond those piles, I kept running along the clearing looking for a
chance to cross over to the road. Finally I found such a spot, crossed over to
the road and ran along it.

I had only traveled a short distance when two girls rode up on a
vehicle which resembled a motorcycle. After they stopped, I climbed onto a small
seat on the side of the motorcycle and we rode off. When one girl commented about my shoes, I told them I had stolen them. Seeing that they
were alarmed, I explained the circumstances of my escaping from Jon. I told
them that Jon had stolen some things from me and that I was just getting back what
belonged to me.

When they finally let me off, I boarded a bus which
continued down the road. It looked like a school-bus inside; about a half dozen
young girls (about 15 years old) were in it.

As we rode along, I looked out in front of the bus and was
surprised to see that a large deep trench had been cut into the road. The
trench wasn't across the road, but rather ran right down the middle. The
trench was
small at first and the bus driver drove over it with the left tires on the
left side and the right tires on the right side. No problem; but the trench kept widening and widening.
Unable to see the bottom, I was
afraid it was quite deep. We continued racing along astraddle the trench, but
clearly the trench was becoming so wide that the tires soon
wouldn't
reach both sides.

The driver suddenly turned his wheels sharply to the left, obviously
trying to make the right tires jump over to the left
side of the trench. The bus veered to the left and the tires came off the right
side. At first I thought the tires were going to make it across the trench, but then
I heard the bottom of the bus hit the edge of the trench on the left side and
the bus ground to a stop, hanging precariously over the trench. The right side
was over the abyss and the left tires were still on the road on the left. We
seemed to be tottering. Thinking we were about to fall into the chasm, I
quickly told all the girls to move to the left side of the bus to balance the
bus and
keep it from falling.

The girls moved to the left, but to no avail. The bus tumbled into
the trench. I wasn't really that frightened and I told the girls to be calm. The
bus immediately fell on its right side on the bottom of the trench, which was only
about three meters deep. No one was injured. The bus lay on its side and we
quickly climbed out the upper windows.

Once I was back on the road, I noticed another bus with mostly
old people on it had pulled up. I thought maybe we could board it, but then I noticed the girls getting into a car which had pulled up. When the
girls asked me if
I wanted to go with them, I decided accompanying them might be best, and I climbed into the
back seat.

Three or four of us were in the back seat and at least four in the front seat.
The car was being driven by a young fellow.
I put my arm around a black-haired girl sitting close to me.
The black-haired girl changed places
with one of the girls in the front seat and a different girl sat beside me, but
she didn't seem quite as friendly.

The girls talked about what they had been doing that
day and the girl beside me said she had smoked
marijuana for
eight hours. Her remark grabbed my attention. Wondering if they might have
some marijuana with them, I asked if they had any. When they all said they didn't, I was a little disappointed,
but then the girl sitting on the right side of
the front seat pulled out a little crushed-up cigarette package and passed it
back to the girl sitting next to me. She pulled a joint out of the package. I
told them I hadn't smoked any marijuana in six or seven months.

The girl to my right put the joint in her mouth and turned to
the girl next to her. That girl stuck something in her mouth and moved her teeth
together, causing a flame to shoot out from between them. The girl with the
joint in her mouth put the joint to the flame between the other girl's teeth
and lit up.

It suddenly struck me that all the girls were under 17
years old and that smoking marijuana with them might be a
serious violation of the law. I couldn't remember the law exactly, but
I thought smoking with a minor was probably a felony. I leaned over the front
seat and asked the driver, a rather scruffy-looking fellow, how old he was. I
asked, "You are at least seventeen, aren't you?"

He said he didn't know. I thought that was strange, but I concluded that he must be an orphan who had never been told when he
had been born.
The closer I looked at him, the surer I was that he was probably only about
sixteen.

I then said, "Well, there's something I never mentioned to
you all before. I'm a law student."

My statement seemed to startle everyone. They seemed to immediately
become apprehensive that I might try to have them arrested; but I continued
talking and expressed my fear of being arrested myself for smoking with minors.
My explanation assuaged their fears.

When the joint came to, I took a hit. A large piece of
marijuana fell out the end of the joint and into my hand. I thought I would just put
the piece of marijuana in my
left shirt pocket and keep it for later. I thought I already had a
little bit of hash or something in that pocket with which I could mix it.

After I stuck the marijuana in my shirt pocket, the girl next
to me patted my shirt pocket. Something round was inside the pocket; she thought
the object was a
small container for drugs. I told her the object was only a little flat can (about the size of a half dollar) of cold cream. It resembled a can which I had
seen my girlfriend Louise have.

Suddenly the driver said that a police car was behind us. I thought
the police would
surely catch me and my law career would be finished. We were close to the banks
of the Ohio River somewhere near
Portsmouth, a place where I
hadn't wanted to
go. We turned behind an old abandoned building and as soon as we were out of
sight of the police car, I jumped from the car and ran toward the river, where
brush and trees abounded. I hid and watched what happened.